In defiance to the morning's weak, pale light and to internal voice that sounds suspiciously like K'ane's warning her against the wisdom of doing such stupid things as being out on the ice, Hannah's pathway up the winding, narrow pathway is purposeful. Bundled up to her very pink ears in jackets and ploofy stuff, she pauses to pull off her hat and tilt her head back to view the height of such majesty as it ascends to the robin's egg blue sky. In doing so, she's let loose silky strands of moon-pale hair to get tangled around her face. With a cough that comes from the clenching fist of cold, she tugs the hat — some of her recent austerity lost in the hat topped with fuzzy, cut ball that bounces with each step — back around her head and marches on. Dhiammarath? Is no where to be seen, although given the pale nature of her hide, means little. She blends in. Like a diamond on ice.

In contrast, Hjaskr is dark-clad and swaddled heavily with furs and leathers. His long jacket, furred at the neck keeps him warm and safe from any inclement weather, but he doesn't seem too concerned about it all anyhow. Instead the man steps out, down the path that Hannah's going up. They are still a bit aways, but he has noticed her, dark eyes narrowed ambiguously. Maybe that pink pom-pom. More likely he sees a child, bundled heavily against the cold, and un-supervised, which causes his feet to hasten towards Hannah.

Hannah is an observant person, but she's not a paranoid person and thus the pathway that slopes downward, behind her is not kept watch of, which is probably something that someone would take exception to given the state of affairs at the weyr. However, that being said, Southern's Senior Weyrwoman is happily tromping up that pathway. Crunch, crunch, crunch. She pauses, considering the slight branch off the main trail and looks about. Indecision stays her actions for all of three seconds before memory returns. Lendai's threat is no longer an issue, and so she branches off and starts down a different hiking trail. One that leads her towards a crack in the ice. Goodie.

"Kid. Kid!" That's Hjaskr, turning and steadily marching out towards where Hannah is trespassing into dangerous territory. His voice is deep and gravelly, almost painful on the ears from how coarse it is. "Do you not have eyes." His strange inflections mark him as one of the wildlings transplanted from the heart of the jungles to this frigid wasteland. One calloused hand extends to gesture roughly at the crack, as he finally closes the gap between Hannah and himself, his eyebrows furrowing.

Halted by the gravelly, deep voice calling out after a kid, Hannah turns and tugs off her head, spying the approach of a bald man from the ice. Her eyes widen a hint, the reserve she'd been holding onto as of late missing from a comically startled expression. "Where did you come from?" Tugging her hat off once more, exposing how very un-kid-like the Senior Weyrwoman is, her brows furrow when the man finally closes the distance. "Of course I have eyes," the husky voice returns, hints of midnight lurking within. "And I see a path that I'm going to go down." A thread of power, of command has slowly been curling through the woman as she settles into her new role; it's nascient yet, but shows promise. Pale brows lift, curiosity sparks in emerald gaze. "Do you live on the ice?" Because that's the conclusion she's come to.

Hjaskr tilts his head at Hannah, for all in the world appearing as a canine meeting with a strange, strange noise. "From the ice." It's solemnly intoned, this where-he-came-from, but that's about the only question or conversation that he's going to treat with her, since he's now tilting his head the opposite way, as if the frequency of her words just don't register in his ears. "You are not a child." It's thoughtful, the way he says it, looking down at her. As if she has no way of knowing this: "You… are very small."

If Hjaskr is looking at Hannah like she's strange, she is looking at him like he's landed from outer space. Momentarily flummoxed, the woman finally gets a reign on her visible reactions and blinks, schooling her expression to something resembling neutrality. "From the ice." Stated in low, husky voice, disbelieving. "Genius." Hannah closes her eyes for patience, before backing up a step. Ty'ai and Ja'kai are just too fresh in her mind right now. "But not kid-sized." That might have been a blow to her ego, slipped out in exasperated huff. "You are…?" Expectation curls within aloof expression that's not been able to be fully assumed; she wants his name.

"Kid-sized," Hjaskr confirms with a broad grin. "Yes! So small." His voice is a little wondering. "Do your people not grow tall? Your… puff people?" His fingers gesture briefly to the pom of pink at the top of her head, and his eyes are marveling. So tiny, this extra-terrestrial! Yes. Hannah is definitely an alien in Hjaskr's book. As she asks who he is, he shrugs broad shoulders, just so. "Of the ice. On the ice. Saving kid-sized puff person from giant crack. Slip and fall, very painful, take many nights to rescue you." He points at the rift in the ice.

Hannah stares at Hjaskr like he's a simpleton, expression softening as conclusions are come to that are quite possibly erroneous or might be correct; she just has no way to know. "Puff people? No, sir. I live in a weyr." Still, the upside of simpletons is that they usually aren't masterminds of murder and so she relaxes and moves off towards the pathway. "I won't slip and fall, I promise. I'm just deviating from the trail slightly." She does not deign to comment on her smallness. Kid-sided. Not awesome.

"Weyr people not puff people," Hjaskr gently retorts, shaking his head kindly as if he has come to the same conclusion about Hannah that Hannah has made about him. "Puff people may come looking if you disappear." Is it sad that he seems to consider allowing Hannah to go stick herself in some ice crevice just for the experience of seeing more tiny-sized puff people? Only for a moment, really. Just one. Or two. "You are… deviant?" His eyebrows skyrocket up and he assesses her in a way entirely different than before.

"Puff people? No, I am from the weyr," Hannah points in the direction of Southern Weyr, expression intent upon pressing this point upon the tall, kind of soft-in-the-head man. Everyone's taller than she is, though. So she's used to it. "I am a dragonrider of Southern Weyr," slowly, in case he also can't hear. "No, I'm not a deviant, I'm dev — diverge — changing which path I'm going to take." Does that make more sense? It's like talking to a child! "There is no such thing as puff people," the senior retorts, exasperation escaping in the short burst of a sigh. Then she turns on her heels and moves with intention of going down that side path.

Hjaskr isn't buying it, Hannah. Nope. "Where is dragon then, puff person?" His voice is patient, as if he could sit here and do this all day. Stand here. Whichever. It's kind, too, his voice: as if he's not really wanting to pop all of her delusion-balloons. "There is too such thing as puff person - oh. You do not call yourself puff person? What do your fellow… people call you?" He follows along with her for the moment. Hannah now has a Hjaskr escort.

"She's out there," Hannah's eyes narrow at the weird, strange, simple man. Giving a little shake of her head, she starts down that pathway, perhaps grateful that Hjaskr — with his not-making-sense — isn't going to try to stop her. Bright side, right? "My people call themselves dragonriders," she affirms, voice threaded with the steel of truth and exasperation. "My name is Hannah, and my dragon is Dhiammarath." It's not always wise to immediately own up to who you are, so she doesn't give more details than that. "What do your — " two can play this game, " — fur people call you?"

A placating smile for that, hands lifted in appeasing nature. "Certainly, certainly." SUUUURE you have a dragon out there hiding somewhere where Hjaskr cannot see, Hannah. Makes all the sense in the world. Also makes all the sense in the world: how the wildling man shifts about the goldrider to be in between her and the crack in the ice over there. Covert protection, go. "Han-nah," he pronounces it different, crisper, almost swallowing the first syllable and spitting the second. Good thing he thinks her dragon is invisible and therefore does not try to pronounce poor Dhiammarath's name. "Hjaskr," replied for his own name, voice placid. "Son of Bjordn, of the ice valley." If that isn't a wildling greeting, what IS.

Hjaskr's presence in between her and her target causes a little bit of ice to flow through her blood as irritation takes root. "You want to see my dragon?" Backing up a step, she folds her arms across her chest and lets the full force of feral gaze land on the strange wildling man who does strange things to her name. Drawing herself up to the highest possible inch spare height gives, she turns her eyes away from Hjaskr, "Jask-er?" Perhaps mangling his name in the onset, but her attention is pulled by the pale speck that drifts across the pale blue expanse of the sky. Could be a dragon, far off. Could be a falling star. Whatever it its, something is coming.

"No, no, Hjaskr. Hjaskr. Hj, hj, hj." It could be a Jeff Dunham skit at this point, Hjaskr demonstrating the CORRECT gutteral harshness of the first sound of his name. The wildling has forgotten the dragon point in his brow-creased attempt to get her to say his name correctly.

"Huh-juh? What kind of sound is that? Huh-juh, huh-juh, huh-juh." Hannah tries, she really does, but the man is strange to say the least and her lifemate is coming. With an impressive (on purpose) and thundrous (on purpose) landing, Dhiammarath sends flurries of snow and ice up into the air when the air barge makes her presence known. The pale expanse of wings are slowly drawn in as the glitter of the ice is set off nicely against her own natural irridescence. "Meet Dhiammarath, Huh-Juh-sk-er."

Hjaskr gets snow in the face during Dhiammarath's arrival. His calculating stare encompasses the largest dragon on Pern and maybe just maybe he considers his options before taking a step in front of Hannah and directly talking to the gold. "No. You cannot eat her. She is last of puff-people." He lifts his hands in appraisal. "Very small. Not good eating. Take me." That's right. Hjaskr is protecting Hannah from her lifemate, having resigned himself that the woman whose life he is trying to save will never correctly pronounce his name.

As suddenly, her view of her own lifemate is partially obscured by the wide shoulders of the simpleton that steps in front of her, Hannah's eyes widen. "Are you…" That statment cannot even be completed for the incredulity that fills husky voice. "She's not going to eat me," chancing to reach up and tug the back of the man's jacket. "She's my dragon, Hhhj-jsk-er." No, she'll never pronounce his name right, likely. Unless she hears it often enough. "Get out of the way, seriously." And with that, she skirts — wait. Hey. Dhiammarath has the man distracted. That's right. Hannah's riding dirty today, and darts down that pathway instead. Boo-yah.

"That is no dragon. Dragons not that big." Hjaskr sticks an arm out to the side of him to prevent Hannah from making it past him into the jaws of you-look-like-you-are-for-lunch, and resigns himself to his fate. "She is not going to eat you," he does agree, though. "She is going to eat me. Run while you can!" That's right. He is encouraging her to run down that pathway. Oh, this is going to end well. Sure. Uh huh.

"TELL OTHER PUFF-PEOPLE HJASKR SAVED YOU, PINK PUFF!"

Hannah laughs, shaking her head. Perhaps, for once, reaping the benefits of a nonrider not understanding the bond between dragon and their riders. Dhiammarath, while her rider scurries down the pathway to bad adventure, settles her bulk down and watchs Hjaskr, curiously. Pale, the queen is with the touch of honey woven into that paleness. She watches, a hint of amusement in glittering eyes. "Oh I will, HuhJhskeer!" Oh devilment take Hannah, she's off down that path and leaving pesky, interfering males behind. Soon, though, soon Hjaskr will realize that Dhiammarath no more means to eat him than she intends to scare him as a soft warble calls aloof from pale throat. Perhaps… laughingly so.

Hjaskr just stands there for a long moment, his arms spread out. When she WARBLES at him the close-eyed man jumps, cracking open one eye just a SLIVER to take a peek at this monsterous killer. He closes his eyes and his brow furrows heavily before he throws his arms in the air in exasperation. "Are you daft too, beast?" He mutters something to himself about how ALL OF THE THINGS are BREAKING NATURAL ORDER around him. "Oh. Jacket? Too much wrapping? Too much gristle for your teeth. I see." And then the hostess twinkie strips himself of his wrapper — that heavy jacket — and with a sigh and a closing of his eyes, goes back to assume his position of willing sacrifical lamb, arms spread.

Hannah is just about out of sight when she sees the twinkie shedding his wrapping. This halts her footsteps to a skid, little rocks bouncing down the pathway. Now … that… is unexpected. With a hefty sigh, the goldrider (muttering to herself) turns and heads partway up the path. "You there. Hjaskr." She almost got it right! Score one? "Did you just strip for my dragon?" Cue the wrinkle of her nose and the scratch of her finger to her temple. Tugging off that ridiculous hat once more, her long hair tangled in her coat where it falls down her back, she twists the thing in her hands. No puff hat, here. "Are you… all there in the head?" Dhiammarath makes a wretching sound. Gross. Human. Denuded human. That twinkie is STALE. For whatever reason, Southern's Senior Weyrwoman allows her dragon to drag the length of slobbery tongue up the side of Hjaskr's body. Then she makes a 'ptah!' sound. Not tasty. "Dhiammarath!!" Hannah, faking her being scandalized.

Hjaskr is wearing SOMETHING underneath, his pants (still) and a light tank-style undershirt. Still, Dhiammarath gets a GOOD taste of his arms in that lick, and Hjaskr's face is absolutely fascinated (where is his terror in this situation?) with how the dragon spits afterwards. Then… well, then there is only one thing to do: he pulls himself upright with affront. "You say I taste bad?" he challenges Dhiammarath, swinging around then to finally look at Hannah. There goes that head-tilt again, as he stares at the golden hair that is suddenly there. He of course accuses her of the most sensible thing in the world. "You aren't a puff person!"

It's a good thing Hjaskr isn't naked because that would be very, very weird. But now he's standing there, licked and gross. Hannah stares at him, dumbfounded. "I tried to tell you that." Pointed out with an edge of irritation in her tone, not at all concerned with his affronted mien. Dhiammarath certainly isn't; despite his size, he is bug-sized to her. "There is not such thing as a puff person," she tries to calmly (failing) tell him, waving her hand. "Now you might… freeze … without your jacket." Poor, poor simpleton needs some help but she's not touching that thing.

"Han-nah, Han-nah," Hjaskr repeats to himself, muttering in the cold, seeming terribly serene despite the surreality of ALL OF THIS. "Han-nah. Where that name…" He reaches down almost as an afterthought to pick up his heavy jacket. "Weyr-woman." His eyebrows lift. Is that right? "Leader of," he gestures towards Dhiammarath, "Dragonmen?" Then he cups a hand around his mouth to prevent Dhiammarath from seeing him say this, but, "She grow too big. You feed her too much." That's right Hannah… he just called your dragon fat.

NO MO' FOO FO YOU. YOU EAT TOO MUCH. YOU LEAVE NAO.

"Hannah." Drawing up to the fullest height offers, Hannah answers calmly, serenely. "Senior Weyrwoman." First time she's said it outloud so formally, "Of Southern Weyr." That reserve slams back into place, dignity slowly winding through the stance she takes as eyes slip from Hjaskr to Dhiammarath and back again. Green eyes narrow. "My dragon is not fat. My dragon does not eat too much. My dragon is in perfect health." Offense cracks the husky voice, dispelling some of that formality she tries to take on. "Maybe you are just too fat." Yeah, that's the best comeback she has.

"Huh." Hjaskr, tilting his head the other way. Maybe he's related to Maosa, they sure have that eerie stillness down pat, don't they? Or maybe it's a wildling thing. "You are smaller than I thought you would be." Does he sound disappointed? Maybe. Wildlings are strange. "Fat? Me?" He stares at her and then, casual as one may be, grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it up, revealing trim and well-defined abs. Does he have an eight pack? It looks like he has an eight pack. "This fat to you?" Maybe he wasn't wrong. Maybe she IS daft!

"What is with you and my height?" Hannah's voice is slowly showing a growing sign of anger. "I am not standing here talking about how you're bald, am I?" Because she assumes that he must have lost all his hair at some point in life. And then he's peeling off the twinkie fluff to reveal the cream beneath. "Faranth." She turns and starts marching down the trail. Is that fat? No, not at all, but she's most certainly not going to tell him that. Dhiammarath wheezes out a hint of humor.

Hjaskr follows her, this time, because who KNOWS what this woman will get herself into without a proper escrot. "Faranth. Is that another of your dragons? How many do you have?" If she LOOKS at him she will see a twinkling gleam in his eyes, but maybe he'll just be seen as a terrible backwoods wildling. YOU KNOW NOTHING HJASKR.

Hannah does cast a look over her shoulder as Hjaskr follows her, frowning. "Faranth." Does she see the gleam? It's hard to tell and her opinion of Hjaskr is rather low right now. "Is the name of the first golden dragon. You know," an idea comes to her as she traverses this narrow pathway that winds deeper into the glacier, ice walls forming a tunnel around them. "You should put your jacket back on if you're going to follow me. It's stupid to wander out in the cold. You'll die. You know, I believe you could benefit from harper lessons. Maybe take the edge off that — " Beat. " — soft-in-the-head-ness you've got going there." No love, here. He keeps calling her kid-sized.

"You don't say." Sarcasm works way better when it sounds like sarcasm; when it sounds perfectly conversational like Hjaskr right now, it just makes you sound stupid. He shoulders on his jacket obligingly for her. "Woman-child," patiently, "I am not soft in the head. It is you that is soft, walking straight into the glacier. How is it that they say? Heedless."

"Stop," Hannah stops and turns around, tilting her head back fix Hjaskr with a look. "Calling me child. I am not a child. I have a child, for Faranth's sake." Deep breaths, Hannah, deep breaths. "Haven't you ever just wanted to explore something, Huh-jhs-kr?" Gone with the good pronunciation. "See what the world has to offer? That's not soft in the head, that's adventurous," she adds pointedly, eyes narrowing some. "How do I know you're not a little slow? You just tried to offer yourself up to my dragon like a weenie on a stick!" Weenie? Wrong analogy.

"I did not call you child," Hjaskr replies, affronted again. "I called you woman-child. It describes you.. aptly." He dips his head into one chest-deep nod. See? It does. He slowly blinks at her in this question of adventuresomeness. "You must have grown up in a place with walls," he muses. It sounds almost sad. Almost like he's pitying her. "It is not wrong to offer yourself so that another can live," stated to that last, completely unruffled.

"I am not a child," Hannah keeps hearing that word and getting irritated by it. "You seem to want to bring a girl down with talk of her size." Turning, she resumes her march down the path, trailing a gloved hand across the slick, ice walls noting the ridges and valleys and strange contortions that were made. "No, I just like finding new things. Walls are meaningless when you have a dragon, except during Thread. Then they're necessary." A melancholy note enters her voice here, before she shrugs it off. "Dragons don't eat people." Point, dear Hjaskr, point.

"I thought only man-children were upset when I called them small," Hjaskr muses aloud. "I suppose you are not that different." What does he mean by THAT? No clue. "Why would you think it need be an adventure, to see the world? I have seen much in my life, I have no need to call it… adventure. It is just life."

Hannah stops again and turns around to stare at Hjaskr, confusion puckering her brow. "Did you just call me a man?" She shakes her head, not sure she'll ever understand this strange wildling man that seems content to follow her down a stretch of trail. "Because there is duty and honor and doing what you should be doing and then there is living. Taking risks, doing things that people tell you that you shouldn't." Luckily, as of yet, she's not been found by any of the dragons within her inner circle. Cha'el and K'ane would probably enjoy dragging her back too much. Too damn much. "Aren't you curious, Hahjskr?"

"Duty and honor. Fancy words, by people who are not free," Hjaskr calmly states in that deep voice of his. "You are not a man, woman-child." He tilts his head at her because he has yet to figure out the frequency of her voice, keeps following around. "People have not told me what to do since I was a cub, dragonwomanchild. Are you sure you are an adult? People should not be telling you how to live." Have some strange and awesome wildman philosophy, Hannah. "Curious of what?" His blank look says it all - that he hasn't followed her up to this point.

"Hannah." The Senior reminds him of her name, not even commenting on the 'child' part; it's a losing battle, that one. "No one tells me now, what to do," she whispers this to herself, more for her own hearing than for the stranger she's picked up along the way. "Everyone has opinions and I am not free. I never said I was free, but I am not bound by walls. By duty, yes. Especially now." That mantle of rank and responsibility is heavy and it slows down the woman's steps. "Of everything. Of the world. Of the secrets it holds. Of what's just around the next bend. Of what new discovery can be found. Of… life, I suppose."

"Very sad. You should try just living." LET THE WORLD BURN, Hannah. That's what Hjaskr would do, or so it seems. "Han-nah." Belatedly, tacked on there as if to firm up his words. "Words are words. They do not have power over you unless you let them." He forges ahead, moving to pass her on the path, allowing his fingers to drift over the glacial walls. "I know what is to be found, here. Ice." A blank look back over his shoulder at Hannah. "And more ice. And ice. And possible death."

"It's hard to just live when the lives of other people are in your hands, Hjaskr." Hannah still stumbles on his name, but it's closer, perhaps. Close enough that it's not entirely mangled, at least. Small wins, eh? "No, words don't, but actions do." With that, she falls silent, watching as he takes the lead but not willing to fight him on it. "Just ice? Ice and death? You don't find the ice beautiful?" Pausing, she tips her head back and stares up the ice walls, noting the deeper indentations carry a hint of bluish tone to the mottled white. Dirt and debris mar the perfection of pristine-ness, adding character and interest. "Nothing, truly, to see down this way?" Is it disappointment that adds a flare of darkness to her tone?

Hjaskr gives a grunt to the thought of being responsible for lives. "I would not choose to follow a woman who did not live." He shrugs those shoulders of his again. "It seems.. pointless. Sacrifice to the extreme." He shakes his head, stares up at the ice, gives Hannah a strange look. "I did not say that the ice is not beautiful, did I. I said I would see ice." He gestures to his left. "Ice." He gestures up. "Death." He gestures to his right. "Ice." He points at Hannah. "Un-life. Close to death enough."

"Death? In the sky?" Hannah peers up at the blue, cloudless skies in confusion, before dropping her eyes not that far down to Hjaskr's dark eyes that somehow seem to carry a hint something more than just the fluff she thought was in his head. "You mean, Thread." Assumptions, here. "Me? I am not un-life. I am living. I have a family…" She trails off, frowning and letting her eyes fall to the gritty, pebbly ground of the trail. For something to do, she tugs on the hat with it's ridiculous puff on top of it, covering red ears, though there's nothing to be done for the red nose. "I didn't say I was sacrificing everything…" she tries to say, rather feebly.

Ambiguous, Hjaskr's response, rise and fall of one shoulder. "If that is the death you see." Does he mean thread or does he mean the sacrifice of everything? He stares up to the sky, once. "It will storm soon. There are better places than here to be snow-caught." For a barbarian he doesn't seem so bad, if you take into account the sky is a mid-creamy grey, and probability indicates it would not randomly start up soon. Everyone should be allowed to shroud their personal demons, and the difficulties that living brings.

"You're very… " Hannah frowns, but she turns her head away, not wishing to expose her demons or his to the light of day. "I suppose," dubious the cast of eyes to the sky before she glances at Hjaskr one last time and more than him, to the pathway beyond. Some yearning lurking within green eyes for the desire of more exploration. "I supoose I should get back before I'm missed." Maybe she won't be missed. Maybe Dhiammarath will mask what she's done. Hannah hesitates, though, looking back at the wildling man before she turns and heads back up the pathway. Perhaps wondering just how this day got so strange. Damn wildling cockblocked her exploration too.

"Handsome, I know. Do not be discouraged, many women are weak to my charms." Hjaskr's gleam of amusement in reply is too obvious to miss. See? Dark eyes are capable of laughter without any other part of his face being involved in the expression. "Go. Back to your duty and your honor. But do not forget about living, eh?"

"I'll try," is Hannah's parting comment; decidedly not commenting on attractiveness of the wildling man. Is she weak to his charms? Hah. He wishes. With that, Southern's Senior goes back to making the weyr turn.